It was customary to visit this place at the most important birthdays for an Ivanov. 5,15 and 25. 

It was the site of the dungeon that Vikentiy entered and got stuck in. Three statues were placed there alongside each other.

A statue of a woman in a field of flowers to the right, Vikentiy’s mother.

A statue of a woman looking up at the sky, Avelina.

And a statue of a man with a sword stabbed through him, Vikentiy.

Viktor and Natasha usually came to the statues together because their ages lined up. They waited until Natasha’s birthday and then they both went with Andrei to the statues.

Most recently, Viktor’s 2nd time going was no big deal for him, for Natasha it was her 3rd time and she felt differently about it all now that she was an adult. Viktor’s first time was the most eventful time though.

Andrei held Natasha’s hand and he carried Viktor as they went toward the platform with the three statues.

This was before Viktor began to dislike him. Back when he was still a small child who clung to his parents.

Visiting the statues wasn’t exactly the switch but it was part of the domino effect that led to his hatred of his father.

The story of Vikentiy Ivanov was told by Andrei there at the statues.

Viktor got out of his father’s hold once the story was over and walked to the statue of Vikentiy kneeling and patted his shoulder.

“That’s really sad…He must’ve been really sad. His mom and his wife were both killed by them…” Viktor murmured.

“Mhm..” Natasha agreed quietly. She kept an eye on Viktor and everything he did. She had heard from Andrei that there was a possibility coming here could spike something in his mana.

Viktor seemed fine though. 

“Huh? Daddy, is that a dungeon?” Viktor asked and pointed straight into the distance.

Andrei looked over there and saw nothing but he noticed Viktor’s glowing eyes and looked shocked.

Instead of Viktor’s mana acting out, his eyes finally decided to activate instead.

Viktor very clearly had ‘insightful eyes’ ever since he was born, it was obvious to anyone who saw him as a baby. Like all people born with insight, a faint ring of runes appeared on his eyes for the first few months after his birth. His eyes did not activate at all though. He saw like a normal person until now.

Viktor seemed like he was about to try and drag Andrei over to the dungeon so he could look at it but he started to cry suddenly.

“Vitya? Vitya what’s wrong?” Natasha asked and wiped Viktor’s stream of tears.

“It hurts! My eyes hurt!” Viktor sobbed and held onto Natasha for dear life.

Natasha ended up going back home with a crying Viktor and Andrei went to report the dungeon that had in fact appeared.

Viktor only calmed down when Elena got to him and held him. That day was the beginning of everything though.

After that Viktor became very different. Something entered him that day and planted itself within him. And it laid its roots, deep into where it hurt.

The one who truly paid the price for it all was Andrei though. The seed that planted itself within Viktor sprouted flowers of hatred for him.

They butted heads in every matter. Viktor was perfectly level-headed until Andrei was in sight. It was a switch that changed in seconds.

Andrei assumed the source of Viktor’s ire wasn’t the statues and what they did to him. He assumed it was all a misunderstanding caused by Viktor witnessing a woman trying to force herself onto Andrei shortly after their trip to the statues. 

With how much he loved his mother, the idea of his father cheating on her drove him mad with anger. And this anger didn’t disappear for years.

Now that Viktor thought back to the voice he often heard pushing him to conclusions he was shocked. It was so clearly Vikentiy that he felt  stupid for not noticing either and then he wondered why everyone even forgot. He had at some point written the voice off as just his subconscious and it actually completely stopped. But he was still shocked that no one thought this was incredibly odd behavior and he wondered why that was.

And then he got his answer.

Zhao Zhihao.

When Viktor was an unstable and rambunctious child he was given a teacher to teach him to control himself and learn to cultivate. And cultivation seemed to fix him almost completely. Of course, he still hated Andrei but instead of the little devil he had been, he was finally calm. That’s how he went from an absolute horror to the more gentlemanly Viktor that Yue met.

Now looking back at it Viktor could only curse as he sunk into the island, Zhao Zhihao seemed to have planned everything. And everything was probably going his way too…

“Goddammit…”

—

“I know more than other incarnations,” Yi explained to Yue.

“It’s the same for all of the four’s first incarnations. We had to start from scratch so we gained more knowledge of our ‘true purpose’ than everyone else.” 

“So? What is our true purpose?” Yue asked, being with Yi felt like being alone with his own thoughts, except a bit less scary. His thoughts often had less tact.

Yi shrugged.

“I know the purpose of ‘us’, as in the six of us who came before you. I don’t know the purpose of you, as a true god.” 

Yue was frustrated by this answer, “Then what is the purpose of you six?” 

Yi smiled, “I have a feeling you shouldn’t hear it.” 

“…” Yue stared at Yi.

“You have my face but remind me of someone else.” He said and sighed.

“Oh?” Yi seemed intrigued by this, “I happen to feel the same way.”

They stared at each other for a while.

“Who are you thinking of?” Yue asked, Yi seemed to have been waiting for him to ask first.

“Wang Hao Yu, the first human to never fear me.” Yi chuckled.

“That name…Is familiar? Is he perhaps someone famous in history?” Yue asked, curious about why that name resonated in his mind.

“No, he was from a famous family but I don’t think anyone remembers his name in your time.” Yi chuckled, “I outlived him by 100 years and saw his family fade away so I could only assume.”